8" Cretaceous Octopus (Palaeoctopus) With Pos/Neg - Lebanon

Cretaceous Octopus (Palaeoctopus) With Pos/Neg - Lebanon #145230

This is a truly spectacular fossil from the Late Cretaceous marine deposits of Lebanon. It is a 8" long, soft bodied, fossil octopus (Palaeoctopus newboldi) preserved in amazing detail. You can see the arms clearly preserved as well as a preserved ink sac. There is also two fossil shrimp and a fossil fish associated with it on the rock. Both the positive and negative split of this incredible fossil is included.

There are a number of repaired cracks running through both the positive and negative with some minor restoration along the lines of repair.

The discovery of amazingly preserved marine fossils near Hjoula, Lebanon dates back many centuries. In fact, they were first mentioned in writing by Herodotus, over 450 years before the birth of Christ. The first scientific work on these localities began in the 1800s: these deposits have been meticulously quarried by several Lebanese families for over a century. We purchase our specimens directly from one of these families.

These deposits represent a warm, shallow sea of the Middle Cretaceous, and have yielded over 70 types of fish and numerous other genera found nowhere else in the world. The preservation on many of these specimens is truly amazing: many examples of soft bodied preservation have been found.

A photo of one of the quarries at Hjoula, Lebanon